The order was made in respect of Fair Isle Tours Limited, with a registered address in Lucan, Co Dublin, which employed 37 people.
The firm had provided school bus services for Bus Éireann for children with special needs across Ireland, as well as services for other bodies including the HSE and Irish rail. The company had intended to expand its services to include bus tours. However the business suffered, and all of it services essentially stopped, due to the restrictions that accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company claimed it never recovered from the fall-out caused by the pandemic. It also claimed it sustained further losses due to the increase of the businesses running costs caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that began in early 2022.
It also suffered another blow in late 2022 when its founder, Martin Cowell, died suddenly.
At yesterday’s vacation sitting of the High Court, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said that he was satisfied to appoint experienced insolvency practitioner Shane McAleer as the company’s liquidator.
It was clearly insolvent, and it was just and equitable that the firm be wound up, the judge said. He also ordered the company’s directors, Elizabeth Cowell, the wife of the late Mr Cowell, and their son David Cowell file statements of affairs within the next eight weeks.
The company, represented in court by David Allen Bl, instructed by Amoss Solicitors, petitioned the court for the liquidator’s appointment.
The company currently has an excess of liabilities over assets of more than €295,000.
The directors had resolved that they had no option other than seek to have the company wound up, counsel said. There was no opposition to the application to appoint Mr McAleer as liquidator.
Separately, Mr Justice Simons dismissed an application by Close Brothers Limited, trading as Close Brothers Commercial Finance, seeking an injunction requiring the company and its directors to return to the applicant 10 vehicles it claimed it had leased to Fair Isles Tours.
Close Brothers argued the vehicles, which it claims it owns, fall outside of the liquidation and should be returned to the applicant. The judge however rejected the application on grounds that the issue over those vehicles should be a matter for discussion between the applicant and the liquidator.
